(One Shot. The following was inspired by a streak of watching One Piece for two months, from episode 1 to episode 499, or up through to some way through the Dawn Island Flashback in the Post-War Arc. The quoted boy is unnamed.)
A child will resent the action of his or her elder.
"How can you say that about them?! They're your parents! They'd only want you to be happy! So what if they're stupid and say stupid things?! What if they abandon you and fly to the ends of the earth!? All people think about the same end for themselves and their loved ones! Everyone just wants to be happy with the people that they love! If someone tells you to be happy, then you can't have no zero respect for that person! They know something about life! They know people have dreams! Fuck what happens otherwise, just remember that WE'RE ALL THE SAME!"
The strange creed that this boy's speech was derived and carved from is both abhorred and revered by everyone, despite the collective ignorance of the entire world. Whether a marine, pirate, criminal or citizen, how many unspoken-for men and women have only weakened themselves by trying to stifle this urge germinating from the unconscious? For most who follow it are hastened to their deaths, accelerated, running or thrown towards it. But such know better than to fear it, for they have imagined no dark void at the end of their lives—an image constantly feared by the many who live by fear—but see something like an open, endless sea, with the brightest of eternal horizons. Make no mistake, this is not what they refer to when they talk about Freedom; Beauty and Eternity, perhaps, if they might ever come upon such themes or matters, but never Freedom. In fact, these people will never do justice to themselves in their explanations and definitions of Freedom. But they won't accept others whose interests don't convenience the essence of their very lives. This is their determination; this is their stubbornness that permits them to empathize, to love beyond themselves.
We may call these people legends, we may hate them without meeting them, we may try to blot them from state, country, history and memory,; but whatever; we do sometimes dream about them ourselves. Dreams, Freedom, Love: these concepts are merely upheld.
(And now, too watch 100+ more episodes.)